Ministry of Health launches measles vaccine campaign nationwide

A child is vaccinated in Cần Thơ City as part of the national Expanded Programme on Immunisation. — Photo the EPI

HÀ NỘI — The Ministry of Health launched a campaign to provide measles vaccines for children nationwide at a hybrid conference on Thursday, to mark World Immunisation Week 2024.

Speaking at the event, Health Minister Đào Hồng Lan called on parents and caregivers to get children vaccinated fully and on schedule, for the health of the children through regular vaccinations and vaccination campaigns.

“Vaccination is one of the most important measures to prevent dangerous infectious diseases. Thanks to vaccination, many dangerous infectious diseases are eliminated or controlled. It is estimated that the global Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) prevents two to three million deaths each year,” said Lan.

With the risk of a measles outbreak in the world, including Việt Nam, the health ministry has coordinated with WHO and UNICEF to develop and issue a campaign to provide a vaccine against measles in 2024 with 1,134,200 doses of vaccine funded by the Australian Government.

The campaign will be deployed at educational units and medical facilities in districts at risk of measles outbreaks. Vaccines are provided free of charge for children aged one to ten, along with medical staff at risk at medical examination and treatment facilities and those who have not had the required number of vaccinations as prescribed.

Health Minister Đào Hồng Lan chairs the online conference on August 22, to mark World Immunisation Week for 2024. — Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Health

According to Health Minister Lan, the vaccination programme will still face many difficulties and challenges due to the unpredictable situation of infectious diseases and the low vaccination rate following the COVID-19 pandemic. Environmental pollution, climate change, natural disasters, floods and urbanisation created favourable conditions for infectious diseases to reappear, spread and break out.

Lan suggested the People’s Committees of provinces and cities promote the implementation of regular vaccination for children under the EPI to ensure safety and effectiveness and encourage families to get their children vaccinated fully and on schedule.

WHO Việt Nam Representative Angela Pratt remarked that hundreds of thousands of children in Việt Nam have missed out on vaccinations since 2021 due to pandemic-related disruptions and the recent lack of vaccine stock, leading to the largest sustained decline in rates of childhood immunisation in Việt Nam in over 20 years.

“As a result, we are already seeing more cases and clusters of vaccine-preventable diseases – including diphtheria and pertussis and we are worried that we currently face the very real risk of a large-scale measles outbreak,” said Pratt.

The WHO representative also praised the Prime Minister’s office, the National Assembly and the Minister of Health for the leadership and immense efforts last year to unlock the supply of vaccines.

“I know we can now count on the same leadership and commitment to respond to the measles outbreaks we are currently seeing in several provinces, the threat of outbreaks elsewhere and in doing so avoid large-scale transmission.”

Pratt also said that the WHO has finalised the procurement of an emergency supply of more than one million doses of measles-rubella vaccines, to be used for outbreak response and supplementary immunisation activities in the highest-risk areas.

In Việt Nam, there are currently 11 types of vaccines to prevent infectious diseases, including tuberculosis, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, measles, polio, hepatitis B, Japanese B encephalitis, rubella and rota, all deployed in EPI.

In the future, the health ministry will implement a plan to add new vaccines to the EPI, including vaccines to prevent diarrhoea caused by the rota virus, a vaccine to prevent pneumococcal disease and the vaccine to prevent cervical cancer caused by the HPV virus.

Over the past 40 years, hundreds of millions of vaccine doses have been given to Vietnamese children and women for free. The EPI has made an important contribution to achieving polio eradication in 2000 and eliminating neonatal tetanus in 2005. — VNS